The ‘Global South’ is emerging in the wake of the Russia/Ukraine war - Jorge Heine (The Conversation)

 

The ‘Global South’ is emerging in the wake of the Russia/Ukraine war. Here’s how it took the place of ‘Third World’ in the language of economics

BYJORGE HEINE AND THE CONVERSATION

July 3, 2023 at 12:26 PM GMT-3

South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping enters the hall during the BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil, November 14, 2019. Leaders of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa have gateheres in Brasila for the BRICS Leaders Summit.

MIKHAIL SVETLOV/GETTY IMAGES

The unwillingness of many leading countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to stand with NATO over the war in Ukraine has brought to the fore once again the term “Global South.”

“Why does so much of the Global South support Russia?” inquired one recent headline; “Ukraine courts ‘Global South’ in push to challenge Russia,” declared another.

But what is meant by that term, and why has it gained currency in recent years?

The Global South refers to various countries around the world that are sometimes described as “developing,” “less developed” or “underdeveloped.” Many of these countries – although by no means all – are in the Southern Hemisphere, largely in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

In general, they are poorer, have higher levels of income inequality and suffer lower life expectancy and harsher living conditions than countries in the “Global North” — that is, richer nations that are located mostly in North America and Europe, with some additions in Oceania and elsewhere.

Going beyond the ‘Third World’

The term Global South appears to have been first used in 1969 by political activist Carl Oglesby. Writing in the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal, Oglesby argued that the war in Vietnam was the culmination of a history of northern “dominance over the global south.”

But it was only after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union – which marked the end of the so-called “Second World” – that the term gained momentum.

Until then, the more common term for developing nations – countries that had yet to industrialize fully – was “Third World.”

That term was coined by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, in an analogy with France’s historical three estates: the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. The term “First World” referred to the advanced capitalist nations; the “Second World,” to the socialist nations led by the Soviet Union; and the “Third World,” to developing nations, many at the time still under the colonial yoke.

Sociologist Peter Worsley’s 1964 book, “The Third World: A Vital New Force in International Affairs,” further popularized the term. The book also made note of the “Third World” forming the backbone of the Non-Aligned Movement, which had been founded just three years earlier as a riposte to bipolar Cold War alignment.

Though Worsley’s view of this “Third World” was positive, the term became associated with countries plagued by poverty, squalor and instability. “Third World” became a synonym for banana republics ruled by tinpot dictators – a caricature spread by Western media.

The fall of the Soviet Union – and with it the end of the so-called Second World – gave a convenient pretext for the term “Third World” to disappear, too. Usage of the term fell rapidly in the 1990s.

Meanwhile “developed,” “developing” and “underdeveloped” also faced criticism for holding up Western countries as the ideal, while portraying those outside that club as backwards.

Increasingly the term that was being used to replace them was the more neutral-sounding “Global South.”

Geopolitical, not geographical

The term “Global South” is not geographical. In fact, the Global South’s two largest countries – China and India – lie entirely in the Northern Hemisphere.

Rather, its usage denotes a mix of political, geopolitical and economic commonalities between nations.

Countries in the Global South were mostly at the receiving end of imperialism and colonial rule, with African countries as perhaps the most visible example of this. It gives them a very different outlook on what dependency theorists have described as the relationship between the center and periphery in the world political economy – or, to put it in simple terms, the relationship between “the West and the rest.”

Given the imbalanced past relationship between many of the countries of the Global South and the Global North – both during the age of empire and the Cold War – it is little wonder that today many opt not to be aligned with any one great power.

And whereas the terms “Third World” and “underdeveloped” convey images of economic powerlessness, that isn’t true of the “Global South.”

Since the turn of the 21st century, a “shift in wealth,” as the World Bank has referred to it, from the North Atlantic to Asia Pacific has upended much of the conventional wisdom on where the world’s riches are being generated.

By 2030 it is projected that three of the four largest economies will be from the Global South – with the order being China, India, the United States and Indonesia. Already the GDP in terms of purchasing power of the the Global South-dominated BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – surpasses that of the Global North’s G7 club. And there are now more billionaires in Beijing than in New York City.

Global South on the march

This economic shift has gone hand in hand with enhanced political visibility. Countries in the Global South are increasingly asserting themselves on the global scene – be it China’s brokering of Iran and Saudi Arabia’s rapprochement or Brazil’s attempt to push a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

This shift in economic and political power has led experts in geopolitics like Parag Khanna and Kishore Mahbubani to write about the coming of an “Asian Century.” Others, like political scientist Oliver Stuenkel, have began talking about a “post-Western world.”

One thing is for sure: The Global South is flexing political and economic muscles that the “developing countries” and the “Third World” never had.

Jorge Heine is Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How Ukraine is trying to woo the Global South — and why it’s so hard - Ellen Ioanes Vox

 O tal de Global constitui, na verdade, um bando de oportunistas.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

How Ukraine is trying to woo the Global South — and why it’s so hard 

President Zelenskyy visited the G7 and Arab League summits to make Ukraine’s case.

By Ellen Ioanes  

Vox, May 21, 2023, 4:27pm EDT

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/5/21/23731540/ukraine-brazil-india-saudi-arabia?fbclid=IwAR0-4I4XU8ezGOifDo-zrejx1Qy8sb5e_NIIN8DVs0vgIGlYnCvZHdByNF4

Ellen Ioanes covers breaking and general assignment news as the weekend reporter at Vox. She previously worked at Business Insider covering the military and global conflicts.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Hiroshima, Japan, to make the case for expanded support from non-Western countries at the Arab League summit and the Group of 7 summit over the weekend. 

As Ukraine’s armed forces prepare for a counteroffensive in the ongoing effort to repel the Russian invasion, the US and European countries have, for the most part, been remarkably steadfast in their support for Ukraine via arms and economic sanctions against Russia. But countries like Saudi Arabia and India, which have important trade and security relationships with the West, aren’t jumping on board — partly because they have their own specific foreign policy and domestic development goals, and because they simply don’t see the war in Ukraine as their fight.

At Friday’s Arab League summit in Jeddah, Zelenskyy made his pitch to the leaders of 22 Middle Eastern and North African states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These wealthy Gulf nations both buy US-made weapons and have strong trade relationships with Western countries as well as Russia, presenting a dilemma faced by many countries in the broader international order. 

The weekend’s G7 summit saw Zelenskyy meeting privately with representatives of most parties in attendance, except Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has previously hedged on denouncing Russia’s invasion, even partly blaming Ukraine and Western countries for prolonging the war. In addition to the G7 member states — the US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, the UK, and Italy — leaders from the EU, Brazil, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Indonesia, Comoros, and Cook Islands attended this year’s meeting in Hiroshima. 

Ukraine was the primary focus of this year’s summit, and the guest list offered Zelenskyy an opportunity to try to bring India and Brazil, two major players in the Global South, on his side. But Zelenskyy and his Western partners will need to make a very compelling case that non-Western countries — especially those who have historically straddled the Cold War divide between the West and Russia — should fight Ukraine’s fight.

Ukraine’s got the West. What about the rest?

The G7 summit has in recent years invited representatives from the so-called Global South, like Brazil and India, partly as a counter to the criticism that it’s an elite institution whose influence is being overshadowed by developing nations, particularly on the economic front.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended this year’s summit, where he met one-on-one with Zelenskyy to discuss the ongoing effort to repel the Russian invasion. India has thus far refused to condemn Russia’s invasion and has increased its imports of Russian fuel despite US, UK, and EU sanctions on the sector. 

“I assure you that for its resolution India, and I personally, will do everything within our means,” Modi told Zelenskyy at their sideline meeting, Reuters reported Saturday, but did not make specific security or economic commitments to Ukraine. Modi has also reportedly spoken with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone multiple times, urging a diplomatic end to the war; however, India has abstained from UN Security Council votes condemning Russia’s invasion. 

India is a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, created in 1961 at the height of Cold War tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. Then as now, these nations, mostly in the developing world, prioritized their own interests like economic growth and governance in a post-colonial context. Though non-aligned countries are not forbidden from having security or economic relationships with the so-called great power countries, the group’s main priority is to maintain member nations’ independence and avoid formal agreements with the great powers. 

Though India has economic and security relationships with both the US and Russia, it has also, under Modi, joined a multilateral cooperation group — the Quad — with the US, Australia, and Japan. Though that relationship would seem to bring India closer to Western and G7 defense priorities, the Quad is not a defense alliance like NATO, in which member states agree to defend each other when attacked. It also makes sense within the context of India’s longtime rivalry with China, which has escalated to border skirmishes in recent years. 

The Quad aligns with India’s direct interests; that’s not such an easy case to make when it comes to Ukraine, especially given another of India’s priorities — economic development. India has imported record levels of cheap Russian crude oil since the invasion in February 2022, selling the refined product as jet fuel and diesel to European countries.

Lula, Brazil’s president, has presented himself as a possible mediator between Russia and Ukraine along with a group of other nations uninvolved in the conflict and in accordance with its stance of non-alignment. Lula’s rhetoric around the conflict, particularly his doubts about Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea and the West’s role in the war, has concerned Western leaders, who argue that his stance is the result of Russian propaganda. But as Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor of international relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo, points out in Foreign Policy, Brazil and Russia have a longstanding, solid relationship that’s been mostly beneficial to the country. 

Countries like Brazil, India, and Gulf nations have to balance relationships with both the West and Russia — and Putin has made clear his position on the war as an existential battle between the West and Russia, with the West as the aggressor. 

“Most Arab states have decided to take a relatively neutral stance vis-a-vis the Ukraine war,” Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, told Vox. That includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two wealthy Gulf nations that have security arrangements with the US but are increasingly drawn to Russia as Moscow expands its influence in the region. 

“The leaders of these Arab states see the conflict in Russia and Ukraine as very much a European crisis that is for European countries, Western countries, and Russia to work out, it is not for Arab states to take a side,” Cafiero said.

Zelenskyy must find a way to appeal to new potential partners

Zelenskyy’s message to the US and other Western countries has been that the war his nation is fighting is to protect not only Ukraine’s fledgling democracy, but the very concept of and strength of the liberal democratic world order against Putin’s autocracy. That message appeals to the most idealistic self-conceptions of the US, UK, and EU — but less so to countries that have suffered under colonialism and neoliberalism.

In a recent panel discussion for Foreign Affairs, Matias Spektor, a professor of international relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, explained that developing nations are often “triggered” by the hypocrisy of the US and broader West in condemning Russia’s invasion. “The one thing that really triggers the Global South is when US national interests are couched in the language of moral superiority, when in fact everyone knows that there is a big disconnect between words and deeds,” Spektor said. 

Instead of appealing to the idea of Western democratic values, then, Zelenskyy framed his argument at the G7 and Arab League summits as Ukraine’s casting off the yoke of an imperialist oppressor — still a pertinent sentiment for nations throughout the Global South.

“This language can resonate with many people in the Arab world and also many people throughout the Global South,” Cafiero said. But it’s likely not enough to overcome the agreements and beneficial arrangements that Russia has made with some of those countries.

Zelenskyy further attempted to appeal to Arab states by bringing Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev along to the Arab League summit, pointing to the plight of Ukraine’s long-oppressed Muslim minorities. Though the Arab League has no political power and does not represent a military compact, it has historically been a seat of Arab, and to a lesser extent Muslim, solidarity.

“Another priority is the protection of the Muslim community of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy told the Arab League summit. “Crimea was the first to suffer from the Russian occupation, and most of those who suffer repression in occupied Crimea are Muslims.” The Crimean Tatar ethnic group is predominantly Muslim and has experienced heightened persecution since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. 

“I do not think that these arguments and this rhetoric will do much to convince Arab states to make any fundamental changes to their positions toward the conflict in Ukraine,” Cafiero said, “because these Arab countries have relationships, have partnerships with Russia that have been becoming increasingly important to Arab countries — especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.”

Though Saudi Arabia and Russia have no formal alliance, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, and Putin have worked together to tilt the global oil trade in their favor in recent months after the Western alliance and Japan sanctioned the Russian fuel sector. The kingdom invested more than $600 million in Russian energy firms last year and then doubled its fuel purchases from Moscow in the wake of the sanctions, the New York Times reported in September. 

The UAE has taken advantage of sanctions against Russia to open up bilateral trade, which the Russian government claims grew by 68 percent to $9 billion last year. Wealthy Russians are flocking to the Emirates — investing in real estate and opening businesses — and the UAE is importing steeply discounted Russian oil as well as precious metals and agricultural products, according to an April report by Nikita Smagin for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

Russia has a significant propaganda apparatus in both Africa and Latin America, as well as the Arabic-speaking world, helping to sow doubt about a faraway conflict that doesn’t affect ordinary people in Dubai, Rio, or Bangalore. That reality, along with strong economic ties to Russia and legitimate critiques of the Western liberal world order, will be hard for Zelenskyy to overcome as the war wears on.

China’s discourse power operations in the Global South - Kenton Thibaut (Atlantic Council)

Report

Atlantic Council, April 20, 2022

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/chinas-discourse-power-operations-in-the-global-south/

China’s discourse power operations in the Global South

By Kenton Thibaut

As China’s military and economic power has grown, so too has its investment in propaganda and influence operations. Following Xi Jinping’s rise to power and China’s adoption of a more confrontational foreign policy, the country saw a need to sway global public opinion in its favor. Beijing refers to this as “discourse power,” a strategy to increase China’s standing on the world stage by promoting pro-China narratives while criticizing geopolitical rivals. The end goal is to shape a world that is more amenable to China’s expressions, and expansion, of power.

China sees the Global South as an important vector for enhancing discourse power and has deployed a number of tactics to disseminate Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-approved narratives there. Two pillars of its strategy include “using international friends for international propaganda” (通过国际友人开展国际传播) and “borrowing a boat out to sea (借船出海).” The first pillar relies on co-opting the voices of foreigners (and foreign leaders) to spread pro-China messaging. The second pillar relies on using international platforms to spread Chinese propaganda in target environments. This includes expanding China’s media footprint, conducting propaganda campaigns, and leveraging Beijing’s influence to gain government support for its initiatives in international forums like the United Nations. 

The logic behind this strategy is that, as China has begun to take a more active role in global affairs, Beijing has seen the need to address the potential for collective mobilization in response to its behavior. China understands that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom are assessing its expansionism and have already moved to counter its influence. By gaining control of the narrative to depict its expanding role in the world as legitimate, rules-based, and win-win, China is seeking to shift the burden of proof onto Western countries and silence potential critics. Xi outlined this strategy in a May 2021 speech to the Central Committee, emphasizing that China must “expand [its] international communication through international friends,” adding that these “foreign friends” will be the country’s “top soldiers of propaganda against the enemy” as China rises.

To this end, one focus of China’s global discourse power push has been to foster buy-in from leaders in the Global South for Chinese-defined norms. This includes its principles of “non-interference” in other countries’ internal affairs and on a concept of “human rights” that actively subordinates personal and civic freedoms in favor of state-centered economic development. It is meant to stand in opposition to a Western human rights framework that China criticizes as having been used for interventionist ends, for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Beijing also sees control over the media environment as critical for enhancing its discourse power so that it can spread a positive “China story” (讲好中国故事). In doing so, it is better able to promote its image as a responsible power and gain support for China’s model of international relations—one that privileges state sovereignty over universal human rights, government control over public discourse, and authoritarianism over democracy. As Chinese scholars Mi Guanghong and Mi Yang put it, “strengthening the dissemination, influence and creativity of external propaganda is [in the fundamental interests of] the country, with profound practical significance.”

China’s discourse power strategy also involves creating multilateral regional organizations to advance its interests. This includes the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Africa, the Forum of China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (China-CELAC Forum) in Latin America, and the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) in the Middle East. China leverages its position in these forums to gain support for its international initiatives, to deepen its economic and political engagement, and to promote state narratives. For example, one concept central to China’s discourse power strategy is its vision to build a “community with a shared future”—language Chinese officials and diplomats often use in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-connected engagements with foreign counterparts to signify China’s pursuit of a multilateral approach to international relations as an alternative to the “unilateral” approach taken by the United States. This strategy is what Chinese scholars call the “subcutaneous injection” theory of communications—winning international “friends” who understand their own local contexts and are able to “tell China’s story” to allow for a more “immediate and quick” dissemination of Chinese discourse priorities in the region.

The regions addressed in this report—Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East—are located in the Global South, which is at the forefront of China’s discourse power push. This is for a number of reasons: China sees waning US involvement in these regions as an opportunity for it to win “international friends” as great-power competition increases; emerging economies offer fruitful opportunities to expand the scope and depth of the BRI, a massive predominantly infrastructure initiative; and Beijing wants to convince others of its “peaceful rise” in order to assuage growing concerns over its increasingly visible global presence. 

Yet these areas of the world have received less attention in public policy and research spaces than Chinese propaganda efforts in Western countries. In the meantime, the impacts of Chinese discourse power operations in these regions are affecting democratic norms and behaviors by constraining the space for organic civil society discourse and by further entrenching existing autocratic regimes. This report aims to shed light on China’s activities in these regions and to offer an initial assessment of the impacts of its efforts.

The first section of this report will provide an overview of Chinese discourse power operations, including its origins and aims. The second section is comprised of three regional subsections that focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, respectively. Each subsection includes a broad overview of how the region fits into China’s global discourse power strategy and features an associated country case study. The case studies highlight recent Chinese influence campaigns and their effects on domestic political, social, and media environments.

The third and final section of this report synthesizes trends and themes, offering a preliminary assessment of their potential implications and impact.

Related Experts: Kenton Thibaut, Simin Kargar, Daniel Suárez Pérez, Andy Carvin, Iain Robertson, Emerson T. Brooking, and Jean le Roux

Download the Report: 

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Chinas_Discourse_Power_in_the_Global_South.pdf 

Geopolitics of the Global South: changing patterns of development (USP, 1/12/2016) - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Participei, na manhã desta quinta-feira, 1/12/2016, dia no qual, em princípio, a Venezuela perdeu seu status de "membro pleno" do Mercosul (uma ficção, obviamente, criada pelos dois grandes do Mercosul, e pelas próprias lideranças chavistas), de uma conferência internacional animada por acadêmicos hungaros da Universidade de Pec (o c de Pec com acento circunflexo invertido em cima do c, o que faria algo como "petch") e da Universidade de São Paulo, em torno do tema acima indicado: 

Geopolitics of the Global South

Não me perguntem se concordo com o conceito de Global South. Não, não concordo, como parece implícito a essa pergunta sem sentido. Não existe esse tal de Global South, assim como não existe um Global North, nem um Global West, nem tampouco um GLobal East. O que existem são países, nações soberanas, que de vez em quando, por mútua conveniência e interesse partilhado, formam blocos, grupos políticos (União Europeia, Brics, Unasul), econômicos e comerciais (UE outra vez, Nafta, Mercosul, com restrições neste caso), ou militares (Otan, o finado Pacto de Varsóvia), etc. Enfim, acho que tem tudo para todos os gostos, a serviço dos clientes.
Em todo caso, a minha mesa estava interessante, mais pelo primeiro painel, pelo fato de o economista ter feito uma digressão prática a partir da Taylor Rule e sua aplicação aos casos do Brasil e do Chile.

Como eu tinha de fazer a conferência de abertura, passei os últimos dias preparando um texto, que aliás me serviu para debater com alunos e professores da FAAP, curso de Economia e Relações Internacionais, e do Instituto de Relações Internacionais da USP. Já postei as minhas 18 páginas de argumentos sobre o Itamaraty e a nova política externa na minha página da plataforma Academia.edu.
Só na véspera da conferência acima recebi o programa parcialmente transcrito acima e aí fiquei sabendo que a conferência teria de ser feita em inglês. OK, passei metade da noite escrevendo seis ou sete páginas em inglês, e é o que figura abaixo, ainda sem revisão, e provavelmente com vários erros, por estar dormindo em cima do teclado. Depois eu reviso. 
Boa noite, zzzz
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Itamaraty and the new Brazilian Foreign Policy

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

(www.pralmeida.org; http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com)

 [Conference: Geopolitics of the Global South; USP, December 1, 2016]

First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for this pleasant invitation to be with you, today, in this conference, joining together some of our representatives from this most important Brazilian university, and our foreign friends from Hungary. I’m not sure if my name was advanced to open this conference, by some of the Brazilian co-organizers, as the current Director of the Institute for International Relations Research, a think tank that works within the Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation, or only in my personal capacity, as a professor and also as one of the researchers in that field in Brazil. Anyway, I will be speaking only in my personal capacity, as I find this more in line with I have to say, today, to our foreign guests. My Brazilian colleagues from academia already know very well what I have to say about our Foreign Policy, in its regional context and our very recent changes in concepts, ideology and priorities, from the previous government to the current transitional one. Probably I’ll have to tackle a little more in detail some characteristics of Brazilian political scenario, both domestically and in its external relations, in order to give to our foreign guests an idea about what is going on in Brazil currently.

Before that, though, there are some questions to be dealt with: what is IPRI, what is Funag, and what Itamaraty does in terms of dialogue between academy and diplomacy? The Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation is the intellectual branch of our Foreign Ministry, an autonomous public body, created 45 years ago, in 1971, with the task to increase the awareness by the civilian society about international relations of Brazil. Besides organizing seminars and other activities linked to the current agenda of Itamaraty, Funag became, probably, the most important publishing house for works dealing with diplomatic history, international relations in general and external policy of Brazil in especial; better, all these books are freely available, more six hundred of them, totally open to a single click of the mouse. Funag has two agencies, or subsidiaries: one is my IPRI, in theory a think tank, in practice much more a tank than a think, at least up to now; I intend to shackle a little this small research institution; and there is in Rio de Janeiro, the Center for History and Diplomatic Documentation. IPRI deals with the present, CHDD with our diplomatic archeology, that is the past, from Portuguese times, passing the Empire, in the 19^th century, and the Republic in Rio, up to the transfer of the capital to Brasilia, in 1960. IPRI will be commemorating, next year, its 30^th anniversary, as we were created in 1987, to become a more active bridge between academy and our ministry. Besides that, we also had, in the past, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, ABC, but it became independent from Funag more than 10 years ago.

And now, what is Itamaraty? Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Service, is a respectable institution of ancient traditions, taking its initial steps from the good Portuguese diplomacy, which has negotiated some of the oldest bilateral treaties in the world, with England, even before Westphalian times. Itamaraty descends directly from the old State Secretary for War and External Affairs, created by King John the Fifth, in the middle of Eighteenth Century. At the Brazilian independence, in 1822, the two services, War and External Affairs were still together, but were subsequently separated with the building up of the new State by our Founding Father. Itamaraty takes its name from the old palace in Rio de Janeiro, residence of Baron of Itamaraty, an indigenous word, a beautiful house that served as temporary residence of the vice-president at the beginning of the Republic, donated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shortly before the ministerial inauguration of our patron, Baron of Rio Branco, the diplomat national hero.

Notwithstanding these old, historical traditions, it is important to stress now that Itamaraty is not directly responsible for the definition of the main features and positions taken by the Brazilian Foreign Policy, which falls under the presidential competence. Itamaraty is a highly skilled bureaucracy, and could establish by itself the main lines of that Foreign Policy, if allowed to do so. But Itamaraty is somewhat like the Vatican: guided by the principles of discipline and hierarchy, it is totally obedient to the Head of State, who in Brazil is also the head of government. In this sense, Itamaraty is highly dependent of the personalities and parties that have the temporary hegemony of the political game in town. And, for the last thirteen years, from January 2003 to May this year, the hegemonic party was the Worker’s Party, PT, and the great hegemon, the most important figure in the Brazilian politics was Lula, before being indicted by a small province judge in a number of crimes that Brazil and the whole world are discovering just now, and believe me, those crimes are horrible, cleptocracy in its worst form.

Well, talking about a NEW Brazilian Foreign Policy implies that an OLD one, the former foreign policy, existed and prevailed for some times, before being replaced by the current one, to which I’m associated, after exactly 13 years of being outside of Itamaraty during the whole period of PT rule in Brazil. It also means that those two diplomacies are distinguishable one from the other. That is not a normal situation: throughout its history, Brazil has known a high degree of consensus, that is, a real continuity between its successive foreign policies, which happened to be essentially molded, fashioned and implemented by Itamaraty. That time was over in 2003: from that very moment, up to last May, we started to have a very different situation, never before seen in our history, a period that was object of my most recent book, the fourteenth that I wrote in international relations of Brazil, called, precisely, Never Before Seen in Itamaraty: Brazilian external policy in non conventional times. And believe me again: those were not conventional times, but a period of clear subversion and break down of traditional patterns under which our diplomacy was being directed, formulated, implemented, since our Independence.

One single word could define PT’s foreign policy, or what I call lulopetista diplomacy: a party diplomacy, in fact, a sectarian one, functioning under motivations and interests that were in a clear disruption with long held traditions and patterns of Brazilian diplomacy for almost two centuries of its existence.

1. Itamaraty: just the operator or a true decision maker in Brazilian diplomacy?

Being one of the most admired foreign services in the Hemisphere and perhaps even elsewhere, Itamaraty can be recognized by its quality and excellence both in terms of formulation and conduction of the official foreign policy. The brilliance of its career personnel, and some other outstanding features in the inner functioning of Itamaraty, are probably at the basis of an over exposure of Brazil in the international scenarios, much more than could be allowed by some of its modest accomplishments in terms of trade, finance, inventiveness, innovation, and other scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. Anyway, our diplomatic GDP is higher than our economic, or material, GDP, but probably not so high as our soccer (football), musical or fashion models GDPs. Brazil became a great exporter of football players, composers and musicians, and models.

There is, nevertheless, a clear distinction between our crude assets, based on the huge amount of resources that Brazil has, as a result of its territory, population and other natural assets, including individual ones, such as those I have just mentioned. But we do have less desirable results in terms of the most striking features of globalization, financial and commercial flows, technology improvements and scientific education and other human development criteria. Indeed, our respectable presence in the world could be considered a direct result of the good qualities of Brazilian diplomacy, including the recent success of Mister Lula and his intense presidential diplomacy for the eight years of his two mandates. Lula became the most popular, or successful president in the world not only due to his personal qualities but also because of a strenuous work of Brazilian diplomacy, which, for the whole duration of his presidency was totally mobilized to serve his megalomaniac personality, a kind of great czar, a mixture of Louis the 15^th and the general De Gaulle. Like Louis the 15^th, Lula always thought that L’État c’est moi, and like De Gaulle he talked of him in the third person: Lula thinks that, Lula has done that, Lula is the cleanest politician in Brazil, the greatest, the perfect one.

So, Lula and his PT’s apparatchiks dominated Brazilian diplomacy in a manner never before seen in Brazil, and in Itamaraty. There were some external links and relations maintained by Lula, or by those apparatchiks, that remained unknown by Itamaraty and isolated from its documental records. Some initiatives, some relationships – especially with the so-called Bolivarian countries, Venezuela, Bolivia, and others, including Cuba – were taken outside of Itamaraty, without the interference or even without the knowledge of Itamaraty, which was maintained totally at the margin of those operations. One big example is of course the tripartite agreement, in fact a simple declaration, that of Teheran, in 2010, between Brazil, Turkey and Iran, concerning the nuclear clandestine program of this last country, its secret enrichment of uranium and other activities in the nuclear field. Few people know that Itamaraty had almost nothing to do with this affair, which was conducted personally by the minister and a few of his assistants, without adequate preparation or technical expertise by Brazilian diplomats or specialized personnel in this domain.  

There are other examples like this one, in many cases involving Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, some African countries, operations that are being examined nowadays by our accounting staff or judiciary prosecutors, to verify if all rules were strictly observed and the best practices in financial management were properly followed. We could have some big surprises in the near future, with some of Latin American and African deals and contracts of the big Brazilian construction companies, the same that are involved in current investigations under Car Wash operation by federal prosecutors. You know very well that big construction companies are genetically corrupt, in many countries, and Brazil is no exception: what is new in Brazil is the extension and the profound, very deep dimension of this gigantic scheme of corruption managed, conceived, conducted by PT and other associated parties and movements inside the Brazilian State, its big public companies, and many big Brazilian private corporations, the crème de la crème of the crony capitalism in Brazil.

Itamaraty was maintained relatively immune from this festival of corruption, and continued to be a very professional and dedicated group of high officials of the State, a kind of mandarins of the Republic, but of course the same cannot be said of the external policy, which was used for the personal objectives and interests of Lula and some high Party apparatchiks, the more equals among the equals during our Orwellian experiment for the last 13 years. All that is history now, but it is a story that is not very well known by the common people, not in the knowledge of the Brazilian society, and perhaps even unknown by the diplomats themselves. Unhappily for future historians, some delicate aspects of our diplomacy during those Lula’s years will remain in the dark, as there is not enough documentation about those bizarre episodes and special operations.

2. The new Foreign Policy and Itamaraty’s diplomacy

First thing to be said about the new foreign policy, that classified by minister José Serra as one affirmative diplomacy, is precisely the fact that it no more represents a party diplomacy, but one resuming the old pillars, beliefs, principles and values of the traditional Itamaraty’s diplomacy: that was always consensual among public opinion and the field specialists alike, especially those in the academia, even if most of our academia was, I recognize, very fond of lulopetista diplomacy. We could discuss for a very long time about this, but I will retain only some of the guiding principles of this new Foreign Policy.

I have already mentioned the party character of PT’s diplomacy, disregarding its old national character, and the fact that there was a complete inversion of the decision making process of formulation and implementation of the main postures by Brazil in the regional, bilateral and multilateral endeavors and agendas. Perhaps we could remember the meaning of a “shadow cabinet”, or a “parallel diplomacy”, being operated by side channels of the normal State institutions. Well, that is now over: Itamaraty regained the control of the policy implementation of Brazilian diplomacy, even if its formulation and the ultimate decision making rest with the supreme commandant, that is, the president himself, as always. If this is true, perhaps we could establish a new division in Brazil’s political historiography: in the same manner that we distinguish, in our Christian or Western Civilization tradition, between a BC, and AC, Before and After Christ, we can make a similar division, in our history, between BC and AC, Before and After the Companions, as the comrades of the PT were known in Brazil. Before 2003, and after May 2016, we have had normal Brazilian politics and diplomacy, perhaps the same corrupt practices as always, as Brazil endures its patrimonial political traditions. You know that Brazilians love the State, by itself; we want more State, everyone in the country want to become a public official. In the middle of those years, between 2003 and 2016, we lived in special times, unconventional ones, a kind of Gramscian State without even reading Gramsci, or Marx, or Lenin. Pure practice, without any kind of theory. But who wants to be a philosopher?

Now, in the quandary of a very deep economic recession, the biggest, the worst in our history, even worse than the Great Depression of the Thirties, which I call the Great Destruction, we are trying to rebuild the economy and also rebuild the diplomacy. As minister Serra said in his inaugural speech, May the 18^th, as its first directive:

[Q] Brazilian diplomacy will reflect again, in a transparent manner and in a resolute way, the legitimate values of the national society, the interests of its economy, at the service of Brazil as a whole, no more serving the ideological preferences of one political party or of its foreign allies. Our external policy will be determined by the values of the State and the nation, not of a government and never of a single party. This new foreign policy will not break with the good traditions of Itamaraty and of the Brazilian diplomacy, but, conversely, will put them to a better use [UQ].

His second guiding principle is also worthwhile to stress, although, as in the case of the nine other following principles, it corresponds to what should be expected from any normal diplomacy, in the case of Brazil expressed in the principles and values inserted in our Constitution. Our constitutional chart has embedded many of the patterns and instruments of the International Public Law, the same that were disregarded by president Lula himself, with his political support for many leftist candidates in the region and elsewhere, which is contrary to the very known precept of no interference in the domestic affairs of other countries. Minister Serra said:

[Q] We will be very alert in terms of defense of democracy, of freedoms and human rights in any country, in every political regime, in accordance with our assumed obligations under international treaties and also with respect to the principle of no interference [UQ].

The return to a new professional diplomacy means, among other things, that Itamaraty, and no more party apparatchiks, acting under non transparent criteria, will take over again – which in fact has already occurred – the central role in Brazilian diplomacy, with due notation and documentation of every action and initiatives as was always the case in our institution. This does not means that the foreign minister, and the president himself have a small role in the big undertakings by Brazil in its external relations. Minister Serra, for instance, acting under the guidance of president Temer, has invite all his colleagues from Southern Cone countries, and their security and defense ministers to a recent meeting, convened in our Brasilia headquarters, to deal with the most serious problems of all countries: drug and arms trafficking, money cleaning, traffics of all kinds, illegal immigration, trans-border criminality and other criminal activities. He also decided, with his colleague from Defense ministry, to establish a joint consultation and coordination mechanism, to settle a common agenda between the two ministries, in order to examine joint actions and initiatives of a political-strategic nature (especially in South America) and of a technological and industrial interest. South America, of course, and developing countries in general, will continue to be at the forefront of Brazil’s priorities, including our African partners, especially Portuguese speaking countries in that continent.

To sum up, and I finish here, the short cycle of the bizarre diplomacy of Lula and PT came to its end, and Brazilian foreign policy is resuming its national, not party, character, benefitting from its normal, traditional, consensual nature. Itamaraty renews with its professional dedication to excellence in diplomacy that was always its high mark throughout the times. We do this offering to our minister, and to the president, of course, the best available technical expertise, in order to allow the defense of national interests of our country, without any ideological bias, or party preferences. It is the best we can do, as public servants.

Many thanks for your attention. All the best in this conference.

A selection of some works by the author is available at:

Paulo Roberto de Almeida: “Uma seleção de trabalhos sobre a política externa brasileira na era Lula, 2002-2016”; disponível na plataforma Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/26393585/Trabalhos_PRA_sobre_a_politica_externa_brasileira_na_era_Lula_2002-2016_; blog Diplomatizzando (http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com.br/2016/08/trabalhos-pra-sobre-diplomacia.html).

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

São Paulo, December 1st, 2016